Family History News and Views from Lisa Louise Cooke, host of The Genealogy Gems Podcast at www.GenealogyGems.com

Thursday, October 27, 2011

A Change You Need to Know About in Google Search for Family History

When it comes to researching online, the only thing that is constant is change! Just when you get all the search operators committed to memory Google goes and changes things.

Not long ago I noticed that the Boolean operator NOT no longer seemed to be returning the expected results. However, the minus sign can be used to remove unwanted words from your search results. (Example: LINCOLN -ABRAHAM results in web pages that include the name Lincoln but NOT the name Abraham.)

The latest change is that the plus sign (+) no longer functions as a search operator that ensures a keyword is included in all search results. Now if you want to ensure a keyword is included, the keyword must be encased in quotations marks. For example: LINCOLN -ABRAHAM "OHIO"

Interestingly Google has been fairly silent on the change. Some in the Tech community suspect the move is in response to their growing focus on Google+ and the possibility of a new use for the "plus" sign. Stay tuned!